


give a gift for your behavior

by ghostbeer



Series: between two lungs [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Autumn, Canon--as they say--is for suckers, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Please indulge my autumnal Stucky fluff, Scones! Small meaningful ceramic boxes! Good morning coffee at a fall festival!, This one's got it all!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 07:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbeer/pseuds/ghostbeer
Summary: “All ready for you, honey,” said Bertie’s voice from behind Steve. He turned around to see her holding out a brown paper sack with a small green ribbon tying the handles together in a neat bow. Steve handed over a few bills more than were necessary and insisted she keep them, which she did begrudgingly. She leaned in a bit, and Steve mirrored her. “Don’t tell my boss, but I threw in a little something extra for you,” she said with a glint in her eye. “You seem so happy together, and I noticed you both look at it, and, well I couldn’t resist! What can I say, I’m a sucker for young love!” She beamed at him and leaned her head to the side to beam at Bucky behind him, too.Steve could only manage to gape at her a little and accept the bag she placed into his hand gently; his correction that he and Bucky were, in fact, neither young nor lovers caught in his throat.--Or, Steve makes Bucky go to a fall festival, much to Bucky's chagrin, and a nice lady sees through their snark to their hearts. Just a bit of seasonal fluff to sustain you and me.





	give a gift for your behavior

“You know I hate this shit, Steve,” Bucky grumbled from the passenger seat. Bright morning light illuminated his furrowed brow as he crossed his arms even tighter.

“Careful, pal, or you’ll turn into one of those brainteaser puzzles no one knows how to untangle,” Steve joked. Bucky grumbled and sunk lower in his seat in response. Steve suppressed a yawn—the last time he yawned on one of their morning outings Bucky wouldn’t let it go all day, peppering him with “If you’re so tired, why don’t we just go home early, Captain Rogers?!”

This was the sixth or seventh week of Steve’s grand Bucky Barnes’ Reintroduction to Society plan. Steve was worried about Bucky’s adjustment to normal life, and everyone at the upstate compound agreed it was probably time for Bucky to get back out into the world when someone noticed on the database that he had literally _never_ left the compound since he got there. So Steve dreamt up an itinerary that was full of both useful tasks, such as getting Bucky a valid driver’s license or making him grocery shop for the week, and things that he knew would specifically bug Bucky. After eight decades or so of friendship, Steve was glad he still found joy in pushing Bucky’s buttons.

This morning was twofold, useful because Steve wanted to go but didn’t want to go alone but also delightfully and completely out of Bucky’s comfort zone. He pulled the car into a gravel lot and shut off the engine but waited for the dust to clear before he jumped out. He looked over at Bucky, who was so low in his seat he might as well have been on the floor. “Come on, Barnes, it won’t be _that bad_ ,” he said.

Bucky glowered from his seat; Steve rolled his eyes and stepped out of the car. “Yes,” Bucky said as he slammed his door shut, “it will be.” He accidentally breathed in some of the still-airborne parking lot dust and coughed a bit ungracefully. Steve snickered under his breath, and Bucky shot him a withering look. “A fuckin’ _Fall Fest_ , Rogers?! Are you _kidding me_?!”

Steve scoffed playfully at Bucky’s anger and threw his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Just take it in stride,” he said, walking them into the circus of tents in front of them. “It won’t kill you to spend some time in the fresh air and eat a few things with nutmeg in them. I know you like to be Mr. Dark and Mysterious these days, but I didn’t forget about all those science fairs and Coney Island trips you made me go to back in the day.” Steve felt Bucky shake his head underneath his draped arm. The place where his arm lay across Bucky’s shoulders felt warm, even through their jackets, and Steve suspected the heat might have been coming from the stitch in his heart he always felt when he got near Bucky these days.

Although Steve wouldn’t wish what happened to him and Bucky on someone else, some days he wished he had a third party who really _understood_ to ask if it was normal to develop new and different feelings about a guy you’ve known for 80 years. Steve and Bucky were always close, but the past few months have been both intimate and confusing for Steve. It took a while for everyone else on the team to warm up to him, which Steve couldn’t really begrudge them. A man can only show up as a Super Soldier assassin so many times before people stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. But that meant a _lot_ of one-on-one time for two guys who hadn’t spent extended time together since 1942.

At first Steve was a little cautious, a little awkward. What if they had both changed so much in their time apart that they didn’t have anything in common anymore? What if the things that made them friends during their scrappy Brooklyn youth didn’t make them friends in a calm upstate life? But his worries were unfounded. Bucky had only been at the compound half a day before he started ribbing Steve about how clean and plain his bedroom was. “Jesus, man, it looks like no one’s ever been in this room in the entire time it’s _been_ a room,” he said. Steve hadn’t drawn his attention to the few ways he _had_ customized the room—a couple framed photos on his desk of Peggy and, well, Bucky.

They spent a lot of time in those first few months going for jogs on the grounds or settling in the second floor common area, right off their neighboring rooms, to watch movies. Even back in the old days, when they managed to scrape enough change together to afford it, Bucky loved movies; he told Steve that he was planning to catch up on all the good ones he missed out on while he was on ice or Winter Soldier-ed. There was plenty of seating in the room, but somehow Steve always found himself planted on the same sofa as Bucky. And, even though they’d spent most of their childhoods roughhousing and sharing seats on crowded train cars, Steve started feeling a flutter in his stomach when their arms would brush on the cushion or when Bucky would stick his cold feet underneath Steve’s leg.

When they were kids, Steve didn’t really give their relationship much of a second thought. Bucky was so in his life that he was practically a brother, and Steve had a lot of health shit and dead parents shit and being poor shit that trumped what he imagined a normal teenage boy’s mind might have been on. But then Bucky came into his new life, and all of a sudden Steve remembered cold nights huddled together when the radiator busted and the angry way he felt when Bucky went out with girls on Friday nights. He had always chocked that up to jealousy about his own inability to get a date. But then he began to register the way his eyes lingered on Bucky’s broad back when he was bent over to tie his shoe on a run, and it occurred to him it might have been a different kind of jealousy altogether.

The more alone time they spent together, the greedier for and more anxious about Bucky’s touch Steve got. He stole moments of contact like a giddy kid testing a new teacher’s rules at school, touching shoulders as he pretended to listen to Bucky explain a kitchen skill or guiding Bucky with hands on his hips toward the door on mornings he was being particularly grumpy about leaving. Contact with Bucky was like lighting himself on fire—his whole body got hot and he knew he was in terrible danger.

Living this way was starting to take a toll on Steve, but he relished moments like the one he was having now, when Bucky pressed his cheek to the forearm Steve had draped around his shoulders before he ducked out of the embrace to head to a coffee stand. Steve let his eyes stare adoringly after his form, safe in the knowledge Bucky wouldn’t notice. He took in the strong back, the dark hair tucked behind one ear, the easy gait—he was still so ecstatic to have Bucky back in his life that he didn’t dare take these things for granted.

While Bucky waited in line, Steve turned his attention to the nearest booth, a small space full of earth-toned pottery. An older woman in a light gray turtleneck and a vest that matched all her pottery’s designs sat in the corner on a stool. She caught Steve’s eye and smiled at him warmly. Even though he was in civilian enough clothes, he figured there was a chance she, and everyone else at the festival, might recognize him, but he wasn’t too worried about it. The people who lived in the towns around HQ were relatively used to Avengers sightings, and Steve’s appearances were generally much more subtle than, say, Tony’s. They mostly greeted him with cheerful hellos, and occasionally a kid would ask for a picture or an autograph, which he would happily give.

Steve had to admit that even though he was enjoying the humanity around him and the sheer discomfort radiating off Bucky, craft fairs and festivals were not his forte. This was mostly because of his complete inability to leave a stall without buying something if he happened to make eye contact with the seller. He was much too polite and definitely too awkward, and he always ended up leaving with bags full of things he didn’t want or need. But this stall was a welcome exception. All the pieces were crafted with such care and reminded him of things his mom would have liked. “I love your stuff here,” he said to the woman in the corner as he examined a small brown vase.

Smiling at him once again, she said, “Thank you so much, sweetie. I make it all in what used to be my husband’s garage.” Before Steve could ask, she continued, “Used to be his because he died about five years ago, even though I specifically asked him not to!”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Steve said, “but I bet he’d love how you’re using that old garage.” He put down the vase and picked up a small green box with an intricately painted lid, which reminded him of something from his living room when he was a kid.

She beamed at him now. “You know, I think he would, too. ‘Always keep your hands busy and your mind busier, Bertie.’ That’s what he used to say to me. I’m Bertie, of course,” she said, extending a hand toward him from her seated position.

Steve put the box down and shook her hand. “I’m Steve. Nice to meet you, Bertie.” He smiled down from where he towered over her and felt her pat the back of his large hand with her free one.

“Pleasure to meet you, Steve. Looks like you’ve got some company!” She nodded toward the aisle outside her booth where Bucky was, well, lurking. He glowered moodily at Steve, but Steve noticed that he had two cups in his hands. He rolled his eyes a bit at Bucky’s pretense and motioned him into the booth with a nod of his head. Bucky obliged, but Steve heard a small grumble under his breath.

Bucky offered him a cup silently, and Steve was secretly flustered when he took a sip and realized Bucky had taken the time to put in the exact right ratio of cream and sugar into it, especially because he knew Bucky took his black. “Thanks. It’s good, isn’t it?” he said, determined to get at least a little bit of positivity out of his friend.

Bucky took a big sip of his own drink before he said, “It’s _great_ , actually. The guy gave me a whole speech about how they roast it themselves in small batches, and I was ready to hate it on principle, but I guess he actually knows what he’s talking about.” He cracked a little bit of a smile, and Steve was ready to count the whole outing as a victory. If Bucky was smiling within the first 10 minutes, Steve already won.

He watched as Bucky thumbed a few of the items on Bertie’s tables, paying close attention to the soft way he handled them. Bucky was always surprising people with the tenderness he was capable of—but not Steve. It was difficult for others to separate the dark, determined, and destructive Winter Soldier from Bucky Barnes because, well, they looked very similar after all, but Steve had the advantage of knowing him before all that. Sure, Bucky had had a little bit of a showman’s swagger when they were growing up, but his real personality shone through whenever he was helping old Mrs. Rosemont with her shopping bags, being careful not to squash her precious sourdough, or when he was leisurely but precisely folding laundry off the line. Even when Bucky himself was putting on a gruff front, confused about what version of himself he was supposed to be now, Steve remembered the soft edges of his friend’s heart that he knew were there.

Bucky was delicately examining the lid of the same small green box Steve had admired before, and Steve’s chest tightened a little at the coincidence. Bucky would call him a sap if he ever said it out loud, but he was always so excited when they fell into step with each other. Seventy years of separation, two incredibly different reintroductions to society, and they were still picking up the same boxes at craft fairs.

Steve, propelled this time not by his usual guilt but by genuine desire, picked up a sandy-colored two-toned mug and handed it over to Bertie, who was watching Bucky with a small smile. “I’d love to take this one home with me, if you don’t mind parting with it,” Steve said.

“I’d love for you to have it, dear,” she replied. She got up from her stool and took the mug to a small table behind her, where she began wrapping it up in protective paper. Steve turned to face Bucky and caught him staring back at him intensely. Bucky gave a little cough and averted his eyes, taking a quick swig of his coffee, and Steve stifled a snort.

“Wanna grab something to eat next?” he asked him. “There are supposed to be some amazing pumpkin scones a few rows over.”

“I can’t believe Captain America wants to eat a _pumpkin scone_ ,” Bucky said with a small smirk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve retorted. “Get with the times, Barnes. We’re past food shaming in the modern era. Besides,” he said with a wink, “Captain America has a sweet tooth.” Bucky rolled his eyes, but Steve could sense that he was starting to loosen up a little. Maybe he could even convince him to try a scone himself.

“All ready for you, honey,” said Bertie’s voice from behind Steve. He turned around to see her holding out a brown paper sack with a small green ribbon tying the handles together in a neat bow. Steve handed over a few bills more than were necessary and insisted she keep them, which she did begrudgingly. She leaned in a bit, and Steve mirrored her. “Don’t tell my boss, but I threw in a little something extra for you,” she said with a glint in her eye. “You seem so happy together, and I noticed you both look at it, and, well I couldn’t resist! What can I say, I’m a sucker for young love!” She beamed at him and leaned her head to the side to beam at Bucky behind him, too.

Steve could only manage to gape at her a little and accept the bag she placed into his hand gently; his correction that he and Bucky were, in fact, neither young nor lovers caught in his throat. That she assumed that from their small, rather snarky interactions in her booth had knocked the words right out of his brain, and the red he felt creep up his face betrayed the flutter her assumption had caused in his heart. He stammered a bit, thanked her, and turned around to make a swift exit, hoping to god Bucky hadn’t heard her because he so did _not_ want to pretend like he wasn’t silently freaking out about it.

But he realized his hopes were futile when he caught sight of James Buchanan Barnes _blushing_. In 80 or so years of friendship, Steve couldn’t remember Bucky _ever_ blushing. It was, frankly, adorable. Bucky was always exuding an aura of cool, so to see his cheeks pink and his eyes wide was unexpected and charming to Steve. His own startled silence broke as he let out a giggle too small to come from a man his size. Bucky looked even more embarrassed, ducked out from under the booth and into the aisle, and walked away from Bertie as she waved goodbye.

Steve’s giggle broke into a full-bellied laugh, and he hurried to catch up with Bucky, who had shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and darted away as fast as possible. Feeling the adrenaline that always preceded contact with Bucky pump through him, Steve dared to slide his hand into one of Bucky’s pockets and grab the hand inside it. “Slow down, _lover_ ,” he said, overemphasizing the word “lover” with a cheesy drawl. To his surprise, Bucky did not immediately pull his hand away from his, and Steve once again felt heat radiate from their point of contact. Bucky slowed his pace and rolled his eyes, rotating his head with them for emphasis. Steve laughed again and pulled his hand out of Bucky’s, afraid to let himself hang on too long. “Are you _embarrassed_ , Bucky Barnes?” he teased. “It’s the new world, Buck! Nothing wrong with a nice lady thinking two men are in love these days.” They both stopped walking as they reached a central area full of picnic tables.

Bucky shot him a withering look. “Oh, fuck off, man,” he said. “I might have been born 100 years ago, but I’m not a _homophobe_.”

Steve laughed again, mostly to ease the tension he felt in his gut. He assumed that wasn’t what Bucky was bothered by, but he was a little embarrassed himself of the alternative. If Bucky was put off by the idea of being romantically linked with _him_ , Steve would be more upset than he thought he could take at a cheery morning festival. He cleared his throat and said cautiously, “Then why did you run out of there like that?”

Bucky looked up at the sky pointedly and sighed. “People know you out here, Steve,” he began. “They can pick your giant blond head out of a crowd in a second, and they always end up following you around all day in secret and tweeting or whatever about every little thing you do. You don’t notice because you’re too busy giving your undivided attention to every Tom, Dick, or Harry who makes eye contact with you because you are and have always been a goddamn saint, and you don’t know the online stuff because even though you have the face and body of a 26-year-old, your technological abilities match your real old-man age.”

“The body of a 26-year-old, huh?” Steve said, raising his eyebrows playfully.

Bucky rolled his eyes again and continued. “And people are starting to recognize me, too. I mean, not as much as _Captain America_ , but, you know, enough,” he said, grabbing both sides of his open jacket and preening like a political candidate as he said “Captain America.” “And, I dunno, I just got worried that I might have missed some of your little fans lurking around us, and then they might have heard her say that, and then I would get on my phone later and see ‘Captain America takes hunky, grumpy boyfriend Bucky Barnes on a date to a fuckin’ fall festival’ all over Twitter, and then I would never be able to show my face in public again without being swamped.” He dropped his arms to his side dramatically and sighed.

It was Steve’s turn to roll his eyes. “First things first, you already never show your face in public, so that shouldn’t be a problem for you,” he said. “And besides, who cares what people are saying? They’ve been gossiping about me since 1942! Even when I was stuck frozen, I was in the tabloids getting secretly married to Marilyn Monroe and running for state commissioner in Montana, apparently.” He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and looked him in the eye, a gesture that sent a pang straight to his heart because it reminded him so much of how Bucky treated him back in their Brooklyn days. “Let ‘em think what they’re gonna think, Buck—doesn’t bother me. Besides,” he said, flashing a forced smile, “a—what did you call yourself?— _hunky, grumpy_ guy like you could do a lot worse than me, right? Romantically, I mean.” He took his hand off Bucky’s shoulder and rubbed the back of his neck with it, feeling a little sheepish. Bucky laughed, but didn’t respond to Steve’s question, which made his gut flip over in his stomach. He silently reminded himself to never _ever_ speak out loud about him and Bucky and the word “romantic” ever again.

“Let’s go get you your _scone_ ,” Bucky said, his voice dripping with derision. Steve shoved him playfully and headed in the direction of the delightful cinnamon scent wafting off the booth of a young couple wearing matching plaid flannels. They sidestepped a few little kids playing in the aisle and joined the long line in front of the booth, Steve eyeing the array of treats hungrily. “Wait, hang on,” Bucky said, a shadow of realization passing over his face. “How did you know there were good scones here?”

Steve turned his head slowly as a shit-eating grin spread across his face. “What do you mean?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“ _How_ did you _know_ there were _good scones_ at this _fall fest_ in the middle of _nowhere_?” Bucky asked, punctuating every other word or so with an incredulous voice. “You _insisted_ we come here together because ‘ _No one else will come with me_ _and I’ve been dyin’ to go_ ’!” he said, dropping his voice a few octaves to mock Steve’s. “So how could you _possibly_ know there were apparently fuckin’ otherworldly scones here!”

Steve shushed Bucky, motioning to the kids around them, but his seriousness was undercut by the laughter bubbling in his chest. “Well, to be completely honest, Wanda and Sam invited me to come with them last week when you were out of commission, but I said no, mostly because I thought it would be hilarious to make you come,” Steve said, laughing at Bucky’s gaping mouth. “They came back and might have mentioned something about them.”

“You’re unbelievable, Rogers,” Bucky said, “truly unbelievable. I _hope_ someone is following us around and tweeting everything we say and do so that people will finally see through the Mother Rogers façade. HE’S A MENACE, PEOPLE!” Bucky shouted to no one in particular.

Steve threw a hand over his mouth to quiet him, but he did it while laughing. Bucky bit at the inside of Steve’s hand, and Steve pulled it away quickly, shaking it out for effect. “Don’t spread lies or your weird germs, please.”

“All I’m saying is I cant believe you used my, what did Tony call it, PTSD-pression as an excuse to miss something you wanted to go to, and _then_ to force _me_ to come instead,” he said, a smile playing at the corner of his lips through his faux-outrage.

“Hey, a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do to get you out of HQ,” Steve said. “I won’t apologize for that.”

Bucky laughed softly and wrapped his arm around Steve’s neck, pulling him closer and ruffling the far side of his hair with his metal hand, which was cold on Steve’s scalp. “Once a punk, always a punk,” Bucky said. He left his arm hanging across Steve’s shoulders until they reached the front of the line, to Steve’s secret delight. Steve ordered them each a scone, plus a few maple cinnamon muffins, an apple turnover, and an entire loaf of spice cake, mostly because the young woman manning the tent mentioned she was pregnant and he wasn’t going to just buy _two_ things when she had a baby on the way.

They scarfed down their scones in a moment, and they were every bit as delicious as Sam and Wanda had proclaimed. They spent the rest of the morning wandering from booth to booth because Steve was determined to not let Bucky off without spending at least two hours out in the world. But, unlike most of their mornings out, Bucky didn’t complain once. In fact, by the time they rounded the third aisle, Bucky was the one leading them.

When he stopped at a metalworker’s booth, Steve stood across the aisle and watched him watch her intently as she worked on an intricate sculpture. Steve’s face betrayed the softness in his heart, a smile extending from the corners of his mouth to the corners of his eyes. He noticed the furrow in Bucky’s brow that was always there when he was concentrating, the way the pieces of hair that framed his face were blowing in the slight breeze, how he didn’t try to hide the natural lilt in his voice as he spoke to the woman. Sometimes, when Steve had a second to himself to silently observe Bucky, he felt like he would be bowled off his feet by the magnitude of what he felt for him. Two lifetimes with Bucky was a gift, but only one heart to hold all his feelings about him felt like a curse.

Bucky looked up briefly from his apparently in-depth conversation with the metalworker and caught Steve’s eye. He flashed him an easy smile that rocketed his face back 75 years, and god, that was it, Steve was going to pass out right there. He smiled back at him, and he was sure that someone could see the sunshine radiating from his chest from a mile away. This, he thought, was why he had started making Bucky come on these little outings—to find that kind of smile around other people again.

Three hours after they arrived, they made their way back to the gravel lot where the car was parked, which was significantly more crowded than when they got there. They were carrying a few bags each because, even though Bucky’s interference had saved him from his feelings of obligation at _every_ stall, Steve still hadn’t found a way to banish them completely. Bucky, for his part, also did a bit of damage, buying one of the metalworker’s smaller garden sculptures to put in the window box of flowers he installed on his ledge at the compound. The trip back home was a breeze; Steve even let Bucky roll down all the windows and blare some music that Clint had recommended to him.

They returned to an empty HQ, with everyone else off on their own weekend adventures. Steve offered to run all the bags upstairs while Bucky made some popcorn in the kitchen; they were going to follow Sam’s festive suggestion that they marathon a few classic horror movies, starting with “Scream,” Sam’s favorite. Steve hopped up the stairs two at a time, still a little giddy from how well the morning went. He opened the door to Bucky’s room, which was impossibly dark for the early afternoon because of the blackout curtains he installed his second week in the compound. Steve stumbled a bit on a boot he didn’t see in the doorway and cursed under his breath. He fumbled his hand along the wall and flipped on the lights, saving himself from falling over the truly astonishing amounts of shoes, books, clothes, and who knows what else that were peppered all over Bucky’s floor. The contrast between his space and Steve’s spartan bedroom was hilarious.

Steve dropped the metal sculpture on Bucky’s unmade maroon comforter, but lingered a bit before leaving. He didn’t spend a lot of time in Bucky’s bedroom because they had essentially their own private living room between their rooms; everyone else, when they were at the compound, stayed in other wings of the building. Steve liked the way Bucky’s room felt like an extension of himself. Everywhere was cluttered but comfortable, and all the colors exuded warmth. He had taken to ordering vintage furniture online, usually with Tony’s money after Nat showed him how to swipe Tony’s card info from the HQ’s database—even Steve had to admit Tony would probably never notice. Bucky had apparently recently acquired the exact radio that his parents had had back in the ’30s, which Steve found both ridiculous and charming since there was no practical use for it these days. He also liked the stack of old school luggage piled at least waist-high in the corner; it might make a good sketch, he thought, if Bucky didn’t mind him spending that much time in his space.

On the cluttered bookshelf across from Bucky’s bed, Steve noticed something that knocked the wind out of him. A delicate oval frame held a picture of himself—but not a self he had seen in a long time. It was from 1940, probably, and he _really_ didn’t remember being _that_ skinny. In it he was laughing, his eyes screwed shut and his hand splayed across his chest. Steve had no idea where Bucky had found it, but seeing it displayed there on his shelf made his heart swell inside his ribs.

Suddenly, Steve remembered Bertie’s gift. He set down the bags, untied the one with the green ribbon, and fished out the smaller of the two paper-wrapped objects. He unwrapped it and placed the small green box on the shelf, in front of the picture of himself. It looked so _right_ there, so he grabbed the other bags, flipped the light off, and shut Bucky’s door before he could regret letting Bucky know that he had definitely snooped in his room.

He settled the rest of their haul in his closet, resolving to find a use for some of it and to dump the rest off on their friends during Dirty Santa in a few months. He heard Bucky come up the stairs and call, “I’m gonna stop humoring you today and just go ahead and put on pajamas at 1 p.m. Meet you on the couch in 10, punk!”

Steve smiled to himself and headed to set up the TV, which was actually a projector of some kind that he frequently had to get someone else to troubleshoot for him. Thankfully this time everything went well, and he even managed to queue up the movie. He started to pick at the bowl of popcorn Bucky left on the large ottoman that doubled as a coffee table in the center of the sitting area, and it was almost all gone by the time Bucky emerged from his room, running a towel through wet hair and clad in sweatpants and an old college t-shirt Steve suspected he nabbed out of Sam’s laundry.

“Not sure if your watch broke, pal, but that was _not_ 10 minutes,” Steve said, eyeing him derisively.

Bucky threw the towel, nailing Steve in the face. “I don’t wear a watch, gramps,” he said as he hopped over the side of the couch and settled a cushion over from Steve. Steve tossed the towel back at him, and Bucky swatted it behind the couch with an easy laugh. Steve moved the popcorn off his lap and moved to grab the remote when Bucky said, voice low, “Hey, before you start it…”

Steve paused, turning himself to put one arm on the back of the couch and face Bucky. “What?” he asked, suddenly nervous for a reason he couldn’t place.

Bucky looked a little embarrassed, a hint of a blush creeping onto his face again. Two blushes in one day was _definitely_ a record for him, Steve thought. Bucky reached into his pocket and pulled out Bertie’s gifted box, running his thumb along the painted leaves. “I guess you saw that picture on my bookshelf?” He said it like a question but didn’t wait for Steve to answer. “I, uhh, usually put it away when I know you’re gonna be in my room, which now that I’m sayin’ it out loud seems _weirder_ than just having it already is.” He looked up, apology lingering in his eyes. “I bought it a while ago, actually, on one of those celebrity memorabilia auction sites, which I hated every second of being on, by the way. Did you know you can buy Nat’s _hair_ on there?!” He scrunched up his nose in disgust, and Steve laughed a little.

“I don’t know if you remember, but I took that photo,” Bucky continued. “It was April, and Mrs. Rosemont’s nephew let me borrow his camera for the afternoon, and I told you I wanted to take a picture of you because it was the first and probably only day of the year where you weren’t sick or beat all to hell.” He caught Steve’s eye as they shared a little laugh, and then, yes, of course, Steve remembered that day. It was warm, and he had been free from his late-winter-early-spring cough all day, and while he was trying to look dignified for the photo, Bucky had made him laugh.

“Mrs. Rosemont died not too long after that, and I never saw her nephew around again, so I had never seen it developed until it popped up on my ‘antique, Brooklyn, 1940, Steve Rogers’ search when I was looking for that old red chair you used to love so much,” he said, a little smile flitting onto his lips. “And when I saw it, I just, I dunno. I decided I wanted to have that little piece of home, you know? Sorry I was weird about it, I guess is what I’m saying.” He breathed out heavily and stared at Steve, nervousness etched onto his face.

“You don’t need to apologize, Buck,” Steve said, trying hard not to let his face show the fire that was burning inside his chest because oh my god Bucky had wanted to have a piece of their old life in his room, too. “If you ever bothered to snoop around in my room like I did in yours, you’d see that I have one of your old army portraits on my desk. To tell you the truth, I’ve had it since the week I woke up from the ice. Asked a SHIELD gal to have it developed for me. She laughed and told me she would just have a copy printed, that photos weren’t developed anymore,” he said, smiling at Bucky cautiously. Bucky stared back blankly, apparently caught off guard.

“Oh. Okay then. Well that’s uhh,” he said, clearing his throat a little awkwardly, “that’s good to know, then. Good to know.” Steve laughed at him, and Bucky shook his head a little to center himself.

“By the way, did you read your old lady friend’s note in here?” he asked, shaking the green box in Steve’s direction. He stared him down with a look Steve couldn't quite place as he held out the box. 

Steve balked. “Uh, no, I had no idea there was anything in there,” he answered. He took the box from Bucky’s outstretched hand and opened it. Inside there was a scrap of the same brown paper Bertie used to wrap up her stuff folded up many times to fit inside the box. Steve unfolded it carefully. Written in flowing handwriting was a message from Bertie: “A gift to remind you of the way you both looked at each other on a chilly day in autumn when you thought the other wasn’t looking. May your love only grow. xoxo.”

Steve stared at the note, stunned into silence. He didn’t dare look up at Bucky before he had a chance to compose himself. Had the way he looked at Bucky been that obvious to a total stranger? How many other people had noticed it, if so? And did Bucky realize that what Bertie had said was true on Steve’s end—that his love for Bucky was so potent it apparently was literally visible?

To cover up his panic and not betray the mile-a-minute thoughts running through his brain, Steve coughed and then forced a chuckle. “I guess Bertie was in a romantic mood this morning! I wonder how many other pairs she read a little too much into like that!” His voice came out higher than he intended, so he cleared his throat before looking up from the note at Bucky, whose head was tipped sideways as he looked intently at Steve. There was that forehead line he loved so much, Steve thought.

Bucky was quiet for a full, excruciating minute. Steve folded up the note and put it back in the box to have something to do, and was about to speak again to break the silence when Bucky started to talk.

“I don’t, uhh,” he started, “I wouldn’t say that she was reading _too much_ into it. For me. At least. Yeah.” He trailed off and darted his vision back and forth between Steve and his nervously fidgeting hands.

“What?” was all Steve managed to breathe out, wide eyes glued to Bucky.

Bucky looked directly at him now and cleared his throat purposefully. “Okay,” he said, “I dunno if I should say this, or if it’s gonna be one of those things I regret forever, like when I told your mom I liked her terrible chicken soup and she made it for me every year on my birthday, but I think I’ll die if I have to keep it to myself for one more second, and this seems like the best opening I’m gonna get.” The smile that had crept on his face while he talked about Steve’s mom died, and he exhaled pointedly.

“Stevie,” he said, breathing the nickname like a prayer, “I think I love you. Well, I mean, I know I _love_ you—you’ve been my best friend my whole goddamn weird ass life. But, I think I might ‘look at you with so much love in my eyes when you’re not paying attention that a lady who’s never met me can tell how I feel’ kind of love you, too. And I know this might be a shock, and I dunno if you think of me that way, or if you would want to try to, and I don’t want to force you into a weird situation, but I just—“ he stopped himself midsentence and sighed, looking down at his hands and then back up, meeting Steve’s eyes directly.

“Look, I got that picture of you in the mail, and when I opened up the package and saw your scrawny, 20-something-year-old self laughing at some dumb shit I said, I realized that I’ve never wanted to make anyone laugh as much as I always want to make you laugh, and that I’ve always wanted to be in whatever room you’re in, and that I’ve never felt like anyone understood me or that I understood anyone like we understand each other. I looked at that old, beat-up photo of the most annoying guy I ever knew, and I realized that if I could go back in time just once, I wouldn’t do something selfless like kill Hitler or Mussolini or even try to stop me from falling off that train—I would go back to Brooklyn and tell myself to quit being so goddamn stupid and realize it’s always been you for me. From the start.” His words hung in the air, thick and heady, and he stared at Steve with terrified, expectant eyes.

“Well, shit,” Steve choked out, voice shaky. Not the eloquent response he would have imagined, if he had ever dared to let himself imagine that Bucky might one day be sitting across from him on the couch and telling him he loved him.

Bucky looked stricken, and began stammering an apology, “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make things weird, fuck, I—” but Steve held up both his hands to interrupt him.

“Buck, shut up for a second, will ya?” he said, and Bucky snapped his mouth shut, looking scared again. Steve let out a single laugh and slid a hand up the side of his own face and absently ran it through his hair. He exhaled quietly, prepping himself to dive headfirst into the pit he’d been staring down for months. “I—how did you put it?— _think_ I love you too, Buck.”

Bucky flinched like he’d been hit in the face by Steve’s words, and the sight of it was so ridiculous that Steve laughed, quietly at first but then, as the tension eased, loudly and with his whole body. It struck Steve as incomparably hilarious that he had been tiptoeing excruciatingly around Bucky for months to not tip him off to his feelings when Bucky had, apparently, been doing the exact same thing. Eighty years together and they still couldn’t communicate like adults.

Bucky, chuckling a little in spite of himself, said nervously, “Well, shit. Why are you laughing, jerk?!”

Steve’s laughter faded, but he was pretty sure the grin on his face was going to be a permanent fixture from now on. “Because,” he said, “I can’t believe, after every awful thing we’ve been through together, the thing that finally pushed you over the edge was a note from an old lady we met at a fall festival.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and punched Steve playfully in the forearm he had rested along the back of the couch. “Actually, in the interest of our newfound honesty, it wasn’t the note that was the last straw,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh yeah?” Steve said quietly. “What was it, then?”

Bucky’s face softened and it knocked the breath out of Steve. “When you told me you waited to go to that dumb festival until after I came out of my shitty depressive cocoon,” he said. “I just realized that no one else was ever gonna care so much about annoying me every second of my life, and that I didn’t wanna wait anymore to tell you how much I loved that.”

Steve felt himself blush. “Oh,” he said, “well, that reason isn’t as funny at all.” Bucky smiled at him shyly, and once again Steve felt like his heart wasn’t big enough to hold all the feeling in it. He carefully scooted forward, moving himself to be directly next to where Bucky was sitting cross-legged, facing him. “I’m gonna, just, try something, okay?” he said, voice softer than the low whirring of the projector above them. Gingerly, watching Bucky to give him an okay, (he did, through a small nod), Steve grabbed Bucky’s flesh wrist from where it was resting in his lap. Slowly, he brought Bucky’s palm up to his face and lightly ran the tip of his nose across it before placing a small, shy kiss there. Both of their breathing hitched, but Bucky didn’t pull away, so Steve adjusted his grip slightly and kissed Bucky’s wrist just as lightly as before. He dragged his nose along Bucky’s skin as he continued, kissing once on the center of his forearm, then the inside crook of his elbow. When he noticed Bucky’s breathing get heavy, Steve took it as a good sign, scooting even closer to him and turning to place a bent leg in between Bucky’s, forcing him to un-cross his own.

Still holding Bucky’s arm, he delicately kissed the hard muscle of his bicep, then his shoulder through his t-shirt. Steve hesitated slightly, face hovering inches above Bucky’s body, hand now resting on the couch beside Bucky’s hip, not wanting to overstep a boundary. Bucky made a small noise, almost a whine, and, smiling in spite of his nervousness, Steve leaned in to place a kiss lightly on the curve where Bucky’s shoulder met his neck. He kept his lips pressed there, heart pounding, slightly afraid of moving away. Suddenly he felt the cold of Bucky’s metal hand land lightly on the back of his neck, encouraging him. He smiled a little against Bucky’s skin, then tilted his head to place kisses on the side of Bucky’s throat, on the place his pulse lived under his jaw, and on his cheek.

He pulled back to search Bucky’s eyes, frozen again by the small fear in the back of his mind that Bucky would recoil from a real kiss. Bucky rolled his eyes a little and smiled. “Come here, Rogers,” he said softly, before pulling Steve’s face toward his with the hand still rested on the back of his neck.

Their lips touched lightly, and Steve felt his nervousness melt away in a second. As Bucky kissed him softly, the love that had been bursting in his chest, too big for one man to feel in secret, passed from his lips to Bucky’s. He moved his mouth tenderly against Bucky’s and tried to put all that pent-up affection in his kiss. His hands found the sides of Bucky’s face, and he rubbed his thumbs across his cheeks, taking in his warmth, the way his stubble felt underneath his hands and on his own face, and the way his lips tasted.

Steve felt something cool move down his face to his lip, and he realized it was a small tear from his own eye. Bucky must have felt it too because he pulled away to search Steve’s face. “Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

Steve took his hands from Bucky’s face and wiped away the tear. “Yeah! Yeah,” he said quickly. “Just, uhh, didn’t expect to be this happy today, I guess.” He smiled at Bucky sheepishly. Bucky smirked in response and rubbed his thumb along the back of Steve’s neck.

“You’re such a sap,” he said, fondness dripping from each syllable.

Steve smirked back at him. “Yeah, well,” he said, leaning in to close the distance between them, “you’re the one fell for a sap, so what does that make you?” He kissed him hard this time, wrapping his arms tightly around Bucky’s torso and holding on tight, though whether that was from affection or to prevent Bucky from retorting, he would never tell.

 

\--

 

The next morning, after a night spent playfully arguing about whose fault it was that they waited so long to admit their feelings, attempting to throw popcorn in each other’s mouths from increasing distances, and a not insignificant amount of crashing lips and roving hands, Steve woke up in his room to bright morning light and the sound of Bucky humming along to music drifting in his open door from the kitchen downstairs. Steve smiled against his pillow, feeling almost drunk with happiness as the memories of the day before swirled in his head.

He rolled his feet lazily to the floor and ambled into his bathroom to attempt to shake the sleep from his brain with a quick shower. After toweling off, he dressed himself in what Sam called a Sunday Suit—joggers and a sweatshirt—and moved to join Bucky in the kitchen when something on his desk caught his eye.

In front of the framed photo of Bucky was Bertie’s green box, with a post-it note stuck to the lid, on which Bucky’s scrawled handwriting said “OPEN ME.” Steve obeyed and found yet another post it, this one folded precisely to fit just-so inside the box.

On it, Bucky had written, “Just keep looking at me the way she noticed you did, okay? Promise I’ll do the same. p.s. Call me a sap and you’re dead.”

The feeling in Steve’s chest swelled, and he practically ran downstairs, eager to get Bucky to help him lighten the load again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And before you ask, yes, I did make pumpkin scones after I finished this (from this recipe, myrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-scones, but I also kind of improvised a bit). oh, and this title was taken from The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine, which doesn't have much to do with the tone here but it's a solid Stucky song in general.
> 
> comments & kudos are such a treat! come hang out with me on [tumblr.](http://theforestagain.tumblr.com/)


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